I can hardly imagine anything more exciting than to be sitting down to address 60,000 households of wonderful, believing people. And you are one of them!

And, oh my, what a tremendous pinnacle from which to view the past year and the momentous months to come - the early days of a brand new year, springboard to the Year 2000 (and the End of History?).

BUT FIRST, SOME SPECIAL COMMENTS

1. THE ADOPT-A-PEOPLE CONCEPT: this is described in a special booklet bound in as part of this bulletin (also available separately) telling you how your congregation can get started right away. This is one of the most powerful steps forward a congregation can take, in setting out to be serious about the Unfinished Task and its completion by the Year 2000 -see pages 5-12.

2. A Book-OPERATION WORLD: (See back cover, plus comments on pages 20 and 22). It would cost you over a million dollars to buy the uniquely significant information in this book! And the special type of information sparkling on these pages is so rare that this is in effect aBOOK OF SECRET INFORMATION. Oh, what a tragedy that the average Christian has little grasp of the stupendous advances of the Gospel in amost all of the countries of the world! Only here can you find in one place a compre -hensive summary of that record of God's finger at work in every country of the world. You will be awed and thrilled by every single page! (To get the price of a 500 page book down to $3 we arranged for a special printing of 20,000. Some churches want one for every member. We are hoping that at least a million copies will be in use in this country by the end of this year!)

3. The Last $1,000 Campaign: We are heartened by the 900 wonderful, sensitive, generous, believing people who have given or pledged the first $1.1 million. If each of them had seven friends who would do what they have done we would stop paying interest immediately and could begin to draw a deep breath for a change. You can rejoice in the summary on page 18. But here is a thought: How can we repay these people? We will of course repay them if we fall short of the $8 million needed. But we also expect to repay them (if they are congregations) or reassign their funds (if they are individuals) as our basic one-time $15 Founders Gifts continue to come in. (HOWEVER: I believe we can, in an important sense, repay anyone immediately if only we can make clear the good news embodied in the following paragraph!)

4. OUR MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE:The most profound shake-up of anyone's sensibilities, outlook on life, daily awareness of reality, etc., has got to be (if he or she is a believing Christian) the very idea that THE END IS NEAR. In the next two pages you will find an amazing thesis. I hope you find it of interest.